Episode Transcript
Welcome back to Lewy Body and Mindful Caregiving. This week, I'm going to talk about why it's so difficult to just embrace acceptance and stay in acceptance. And as always, it's about self-care and what we did do this week to take care of ourselves and be okay. And I got to admit, I am a puzzle fanatic, and I love Winter because it lets me do more puzzles. I probably do about a puzzle a week, maybe two, depending on the situation.
This week, I did a couple of puzzles, too, and I got to drink some tea and listen to some great music while I was doing that, which was absolutely a beautiful way to boy my spirit. So, thanks for listening.
This week I want to talk about acceptance and why it's so hard to stay in that state of acceptance.
I had a friend come to me. You guys know I'm a life coach and reverend as well. So, I meet with clients and help them out. And this one client came to me, and we were working on some of her past challenges and healing those issues, and she said to me, why can't I just be in acceptance? Like, why can't I just accept that it is what it is and move on? I just want to stay in acceptance. And in that moment, I recognized that.
Acceptance is like grief.
It is a part of grief. The stages of grief are anger and denial, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
Acceptance means that you've lost something.
Something has shifted, something has changed.
Acceptance means that it is not as.
It was, and you're going through something uncomfortable so that you can get to something comfortable.
Acceptance, when you have a loved one who has a degenerative disease, a terminal diagnosis, and things are not going to get better, they are going to steadily.
Decline is really unbelievably difficult and frustrating.
Speaker A: Because things are constantly changing.
They are constantly shifting and constantly moving. And just when you think that you have accepted the new state of being, then there is a new thing that comes up, which means that you have to go through all of that again.
Acceptance is like.
Speaker B: This farcical thing that seems completely unachievable.
Unattainable.
The stages of grief are very much there in the day to day as we deal with them.
There is absolutely anger.
Anger that your loved one is going through this. Anger that you are dealing with it as well. Anger that they are being taken away from you. They are angry that they are losing their memory and control over their mind and body.
There's anger.
There's so much anger.
Understandably so.
And there's. Yeah, Lewy body is so all over the board that, no, that happened to them, but that doesn't mean it's going to happen to me. I'll be just fine. I'm not going to get that bad. What are you talking about? No, it'll be okay. Denial. A: She's not really that bad, right? She hasn't changed that much.
She really won't forget me, right? Because she's with it enough. Maybe she'll be one of the ones that keeps her memory but then loses the other stuff. Denial.
I don't believe that this is actually happening. I'm going to keep driving.
I'm going to keep letting them drive because I don't believe it's that big of a deal. Denial. I'm not a caregiver.
Oh, yes, you are.
Denial.
Bargaining. I haven't done much bargaining.
If this could happen, if just if only, well, maybe we can do this instead of that.
Maybe if we do this, then it. Speaker A: Won'T be so bad.
Depression is one that I deal with a lot, the inability to fix it, make it better. I think personally, I vacillate between depression and acceptance more than anything else. There are times when I'm just tired. And I'm so emotional, I just want to cry. And it's not just my mom's life.
There are plenty of other things going on in life that are overwhelming, and. I won't go into all of them. Because you don't need to hear them all. And I know that you have your. Own things going on, but mom is. Just one of five big things happening right now.
Your loved one is probably just one of multiple big things going on for you. And there are days where I'm like, yep, I know that this is just going to be a slow steady, and. That'S okay, we just want to slow it down instead of having it tank. I know it's not going to get better. And then.
There will be moments where I just want to cry and I don't want to function and I don't want to do anything.
Joy is a little harder in coming. And yet I find friends or things. To do that will help me.
I seek more to stay, even kill now, because I don't want to allow myself to slide down because then I'll just be an emotional mess. And I don't want to get too high because I know that there's always a crash for a crash equal to the up. So I enjoy the little spots that I have, and I seek out just meditative moments.
Like when I'm working on my pottery. I seek out moments to give myself a breather. And they end up being more and more individual instead of with a lot of people because there's just not a.
Lot of energy to go around other. Than for what I'm dealing with in this moment. And on the one hand, that just brings up grief and anger and denial. And bargaining as well because it's, well. I want to spend more time with. My friends, but I just don't have the energy to do that. And I'm angry about that, and I'm frustrated about that.
I'm frustrated that life has shifted so. Much, and yet okay, I can accept. That this is what is for right now.
And that will change at some point.
Asking to find acceptance, I think, fails to acknowledge the challenges that we have to go through to get to acceptance. It fails to acknowledge that we need to go through the anger and the grief and the bargaining and the denial.
And the depression to get there. So what I've tried to do for myself, and perhaps it will help you as well, is by knowing that acceptance is a part of the grief cycle. I ask myself when I'm out of. Acceptance, when I find myself more in the depression or more in the anger. Part of it, I try to ask.
Myself, what is it that I have lost? Why have I shifted out of acceptance?
Did I shift out because I'm afraid of losing her? Did I shift out because I'm angry that I need to be in this position? What is it that pulled me out of acceptance, and what part of grief am I in? So acknowledging the part of grief, acknowledging that I've shifted out of acceptance, means that I also have the ability to find my way back to acceptance by naming the thing that has shifted, naming the emotion that is before me, causing me to shift out of acceptance, naming that thing that is blocking me from that peace, if you will.
Because there's not a lot of peace when you're dealing with a loved one who is going through this. However, I think that we can find some of that.
So I seek to find what has knocked me out. What is it that I'm stressed and fretting over? What am I worried about?
If I can name that, if I can acknowledge that, then I might have actions and things that I can do to bring me back in.
When I'm knocked out of acceptance, there have been times that. I'm worried that.
I'm not doing enough, that I'm not helping enough. And to an outsider, that's absolutely absurd. I cannot tell you how many medical professionals, doctors, dentists, whatnot have said to me, wow, she's really lucky to have you because you're doing so much for and I'm like, no, there are times where I'm like, no, I'm actually not doing enough. And the third and yet that is a thought that I have. And when I am beating myself up for not doing enough, then I'm out of acceptance, right?
It's, well, I need to do this, and I need to do that, and I'm not accepting what is okay. So how do I shift that? I look at what I am doing.
I have a little list. I do this, and I do this.
And I do this, and I do this. And when I list it out, I actually recently listed it out as a weekly, monthly thing. Well, on a weekly basis, I do this.
On a daily basis, I do this. On a monthly basis, I do this. And when I stepped back and I looked at it that way, it was like, oh, you know what? I get it. I'm actually doing a bit, and that's okay. So I can stop being so upset with myself and angry with myself for not doing enough and accept that I am doing enough and kind of pat myself on the back and say, you're doing okay. You're doing all right.
Naming it, acknowledging what it is, acknowledging what I need to shift so that I can get back to acceptance, is what helps me get through. And I hope that it will help you get through as well.
We don't have to stay in the angry and upset. Yes, we are going to touch on it. Grief is not linear. You don't go from one to the next to the next to the next. You bounce around all over the place. And we never get rid of grief. We live with grief.
It's like a little room in your.
Heart, and every now and then you. Just have to go into that room.
And you have to sit and acknowledge. The loss. And be there for a minute. Then when you're done, you can come. Back out of the room and close the door and you're back in acceptance.
When we have a big loss, we. Spend more time in that room because we're having to process the loss and grieve it.
And there might be a part of that room that has, like, broken plates where you can just throw and thrash and be angry. And there might be a part of that room.
That you bargain in. That room is where you can hold your grief. Because none of us, we've all lost. Things people, jobs, loved ones, friendships, whatnot. We'Ve all lost things that we miss, that we grieve. And so sometimes we need, like, that's why that room is there. You go in and you say hi, and then you can move on. We live with it.
We don't move through it. We don't get over it. We don't move on. And expecting somebody who's grieving to be okay, like, that is unfair and incompassionate. It's just wrong.
Acknowledging that we all have it, that. We all live with it, makes it. A little bit easier.
Acknowledging that acceptance is a part of grief means that we allow ourselves to be angry, allow ourselves to deny that this is what's going on, allow ourselves to bargain a little bit, allow ourselves to be depressed, give ourselves permission, and then find acceptance. We will have moments of acceptance where it's like, yes, this is it. And then we will have moments where everything is in upheaval and we don't know what to do. And we're really emotional and we're really upset, and we're really frustrated. And that's okay too, because all of those emotions are letting us know that there is something that we need to attend to, something we need to pay attention to.
Give yourself a break.
Give yourself a moment of peace.
Acknowledge that you cannot live in acceptance, because acceptance is a part of grief. And it is perfectly fine to go through the rest of the stages.
Permission, compassion, understanding this is what we need to do. These are the gifts we need to give ourselves. So thank you for listening. I hope that you go and do a little bit of self care and.
Breathe a little deeper. Know that you're doing a really good job. Know that you are okay.
It's okay to be sad. It's okay to be happy. Embrace what you have have right here, right now. And I hope you come back again. Next week for the next installment of Lily body and mindful caregiving.
